Do you prefer listening to live music instead of prerecorded music? Well, instead of waiting in line for concerts, the Concert Vault app is bringing the shows to you.
The recently released iPad app gives you access to the entire catalog of Concert Vault, which is the largest and most exclusive collection of live concert audio and video recordings from the 1950s till today. The recordings cover a wide array of genres –- for example, you can find concerts from Pink Floyd at Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1977 and the Grateful Dead at Fillmore East in 1970 to The Lumineers at South by Southwest in 2012.
The live music collection started in 2003 with Wolfgang’s Vault, a private music company that acquired master recordings from the archives of Bill Graham Presents. Since then, Concert Vault acquired more collections and has been converting the recordings digitally. Today, Concert Vault owns more than 10,000 live audio and video from famous venues such as the Fillmore East, Newport Jazz Festival and Ash Grove.
Users can search through seven channels or by a list of artists on the iPad app to find their favorite vintage concert recordings. They can create playlists, stream music, play a random selection of music or choose “similar artist” to discover new music. Once you find the music you love, the integrated AirPlay feature for Apple TV allows you to stream the concert videos straight from your iPad.
The app also includes a biography for artists and bands, and a news section that lists the most recent news articles about them.
Concert Vault has a membership-based business model of $3.99 a month or $39.99 per year to access its content. The website and app also sync to the Wolfgang’s Vault memorabilia store, where users can purchase posters, vintage shirts, books and backstage passes.
“Unlike other music platforms like Spotify and Pandora, you can’t find the music on Concert Vault anywhere else,” says George Howard, COO of Norton, LLC, the parent company of Concert Vault, Wolfgang's Vault, Daytrotter and Paste Magazine, which all have exclusive live audio and video recordings featured in the Concert Vault iPad app. “We hope people will use the app to discover music from the past, and remember what it was that made music important to them.”
For years, Concert Vault has been working to restore and preserve live concert audio and video recordings. According to Howard, their engineers reproduce the recorded music on its original media, and use original machines and tape decks to maintain them with great care. They then capture the music digitally to deliver stunning recordings for their users.
Concert Vault also spends time researching important information about the recordings, such as the song names and concert dates, so they can list this information on their site and iPad app.
The Concert Vault app is also available for iPhone and Android devices. The iPad app, however, includes more enhanced features such as its “similar artist” engine, related memorabilia and two free weekly concert
downloads for members.